Thursday, September 2, 2010

Abbey Lincoln/Aminata Moseka led a remarkable life. www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=8767 Besides being a wonderful Singer, Composer/Lyricist, and Pianist, she was also a gifted Clothes Designer and Painter. As an Actress, she made three striking films. The Girl Can't Help It (which was a groundbreaking 1950s film about the emerging Pop Culture - a favourite of The Beatles, who once took a break from recording The White Album in 1968, to watch it together on the BBC), Nothing But A Man (a gripping and gritty 1960s film about Black survival in the South - with an early Motown Film Soundtrack), and For Love Of Ivy (a marvelously touching and funny love story with title song sung by Shirley Horn {who is mentioned in an earlier posting: www.observer1984.blogspot.com/2008/06/miles-autobiography-miles-and-me.html -Check out Ms. Horn's exquisitely beautiful album, 'Here's To Life' www.amazon.com/Heres-Life-Shirley-Horn/dp/B0000046KM }). Besides this, she also acted in several television dramas. Among them, Mission Impossible. Abbey Lincoln was also a dedicated Civil Rights Activist during the changing landscape of 1960s America. Her powerful recordings with husband, Drummer Max Roach, were a deep reflection of the times. In the 1970s, she traveled to Africa as a guest of the very popular and much loved and admired South African Singer and Anti-Apartheid Activist Miriam Makeba www.panafricannews.blogspot.com/2008/11/africa-world-tributes-paid-to-miriam.html ; and received the name Aminata Moseka. The culmination of this was Ms. Lincoln's album, 'People In Me' (Nippon Phonogram/Inner City Records); a beautiful collection she recorded while on a concert tour of Japan, where she met up with Miles Davis, who was also in Japan, performing with his current ensemble. Some of his band members backed her on the album, and one of the photos on the inside record sleeve, was of Miles and Abbey together in the Recording Studio. Her composition, 'Natas (Playmate)', was just gorgeous; and has remained in the memory as a magical bright spot that is never far away. I think we were blessed to have someone with such magic, talent, intelligence and dedication, sharing the world with us. www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=63053